The Switch, The Secret, The Plan
by LiebWriteBreathe
Summary: Michelle meets Maddison, an identical stranger. The two have something the other is lacking in their lives and decide to switch. But what happens when they are living each other's lives?
1. First Meeting

"Michelle sweetie slow down, you'll give yourself indigestion." Danny says seeing his youngest daughter devouring her breakfast waffles, barely taking a breath between bites.

"Sorry dad, I'm just so desperate to get to Peppermill, I think today is the day he will jump. We were so close yesterday." She says stopping to take a huge gulp of her orange juice that was before her. Not slowing down her pace though desperate to leave the house.

"Just take it easy Michelle, I know you are desperate to land the jump, but maybe you are not ready yet for jumps. Sometimes you have to go back to the basics and build back to the harder events." Danny says to her not wanting her to overdo it and be let down again after she was unable to land her jumps.

"Stephanie, get down here we need to leave in a few minutes." Danny says for the third time that morning trying to call his teenage daughter down to eat before they had to be dropped off at the summer activities the two wanted to participate in.

"She's dressing for a boy." Michelle says now finished her food and her plate empty. "Can we go without her? Peppermill is waiting for me."

Danny who had been cleaning the table moves to sit on the seat next to Michelle and faces her panic instantly on his mind after hearing what she had said. "What boy? What do you know?" He says needing the details of Stephanie's relationship, all it did was freak him out hearing about his daughters with boys he doesn't know. He dreaded any of his three girls dating, but found if he knew about it,he could intervene when they got broken hearts.

"His name is Connor, she met him a few days ago at music camp. She said she wanted to look cute for him and couldn't decide what her best outfit was. They all looked the same to me." Michelle says not knowing or caring about it much as she just wanted to go riding on Peppermill.

"Let's go dad." Stephanie says coming down the stairs finally now wearing a short red skirt that didn't cover much of her legs and a short top showing her entire stomach off. She had her hair straight down, with a headband pulling on and just a slight amount of makeup gracing her face. Danny looks her up and down and sees the skimpy lack of clothing she had ended up choosing.

"You are not going dressed like that. Put some clothes on Stephanie." He says simply and starts cleaning the table.

"I spent hours choosing this outfit I look cute. Why do I have to change?" Stephanie says getting angry that he was forcing her to change. She had spent so long getting it perfected she didn't want to change again.

"Because that is not an appropriate outfit for my fourteen year old. Go change, cover up and be quick we are late." He says whilst cleaning Michelle's plate.

"This is so unfair. DJ always got to wear what she wanted." Stephanie says while storming off up the stairs to change. A few minutes later she comes down in jeans and doing up a jacket covering her top that she hadn't changed. Michelle saw what she did and gets a death stare from Stephanie before she tattled on her.

The three of them eventually leave and Danny drives Stephanie to music camp and drops Michelle off at the riding school.

-xxxx-

"Maddison, what's wrong?" A slim, tall brunette woman dressed in jeans and a simple white t-shirt says standing in her small kitchen looking at her daughter that was sitting at the two person table.

"Can I come work with you instead, I don't feel like camp today?" She says not wanting to go to the activity camp her mom was sending her to for the day.

"It will be no fun for you Maddison. You will be sitting alone all day whilst I'm serving people. There will be no friends and no one to talk to all day. You will get bored." She moves to go and sit at the table a cup of coffee in her hands.

"Besides I thought you were looking forward to camp? You will get to see all your new friends, what happened?" She says reaching one hand out to her little girl for comfort seeing her sad face get even sadder.

"I was before, but now I just want to be with you. I don't want to go camp I want to stay with you all day. Why do you have to work?" Maddison says playing with her breakfast in the bowl in front of her. She had been unable to eat it as she didn't feel hungry that morning. It had turned into mush in her bowl so was fun to make the mush worse.

"You know why Maddison. I tell you what. You have a good day at camp and make some friends today, rather than staying with Lorna all day. And I will try and get a day off soon and we can do whatever you want. Will that be okay?" She asks seeing the sadness on her little girls face.

"Yeah okay." Maddison says whilst mustering up the best smile she could. She knew her mom wouldn't do it though, she never had the time.

"Go get ready and let's drop you off for a fun day at camp." Her mom says picking up the still almost full bowl so she could clean it before they leave.

-xxxx-

"Come on Peppermill, it's okay. It's just a small jump. Please go over it Peppermill." Michelle says riding on Peppermill, she had been trying to get him to go over the obstacles but everyday he had stopped and then walked backwards. Too afraid to jump them. Michelle had fallen off and injured herself and since then he refuses to jump them, Michelle herself was scared of doing the jumps but knew the two of them could do it again.

"Just one jump please. Go over one hurdle please." She says as they were riding closer and closer to the smallest one in the training arena. As they got to it he stopped and started to freak out again, still too scared of what would happen if he jumped it. He slowly started turning himself and walking away. Michelle looking defeated that he still won't do it.

"It's okay Michelle, just keep trying. He will do it one day I promise you." Her coach yells from the sides. Michelle rides him over towards her coach. And sits on Peppermill while talking with her coach.

"No he won't, I can't get him to do it anymore. My accident scared him and it's scared me. He won't respond to me. He stops before every hurdle." Michelle says her face looking disappointed and heartbroken that she just can't do it anymore.

"Sometimes when you have big falls like that it is hard to over come them. Just give it time, you need to feel confident about the jump and one day he will respond to it and jump for you. Don't rush him and don't rush yourself. I know you want to enter the competition at the end of the month but maybe you should wait for another one. It's still a bit too soon." Her coach says seeing that their progress was slow and that Michelle wasn't quite ready to enter Peppermill Into the riding competition.

"Yeah maybe. But I missed the last one and I really think I can do it, if I could just get him to jump." Michelle says feeling annoyed at herself suddenly over none of it working.

"Let me think on it, there has to be a way to boost your confidence up and help spark Peppermill up again. Go take him back for a break, you've both been working really hard. Maybe tomorrow will be the day you jump." Her coach says before opening the gate and letting Michelle and Peppermill leave still thinking about the solution of what they could do.

-xxxx-

"We are going to play baseball want to join in Maddison?" A small blonde boy says trying to get Maddison to move from the spot in the grass she has stayed in since her mom had dropped her off.

"No." She says not feeling like playing with him. He walks away and talks to the leader of the baseball game and comes back over to her a few minutes later.

"Maddison, I think you'd enjoy playing if you tried it. Have you ever played baseball before?" She says crouching down to look right at Maddison.

"No, I'm happy here thank you Lorna." She says without looking up. Lorna a woman in her mid twenties wearing black leggings and a long pink camp shirt and her hair up in a messy ponytail. She offers her hand out to Maddison and leaves it in front of her waiting until she was willing to take it.

"Come on just try it, if you don't like it you can come right back here by yourself. But try the game for me." She says and gets a nod from Maddison and she takes her hand and goes over to the game.

"Can we let Maddison have a turn. What you have to do is hit the ball with this bat when it is thrown. When you hit it run. Can you do that?" Lorna says standing with Maddison waiting for a response. She hands over the bat and Maddison walks to where she was told to go.

"Run, run, run." Everyone is shouting after Maddison hits the ball sending it far away, everyone on the opposing team running round to try and catch it before she has managed to run round each base. She runs and runs hearing the chants.

"Maddison where are you going, the last base is down here." Is yelled at her by Lorna as Maddison continues to run going away from the pitch they were playing on. She goes and goes right up until she finds herself hit against something solid and falls down on the ground.

-xxxx-

"Your horse is useless Michelle. And so are you. You are never going to beat me in the competition at the end of the month. You're a disgrace, you can't even do a small jump. My horse is already jumping the highest hurdles." A red haired girl that was a few years older than Michelle says whilst brushing down her own horse, next to Michelle.

"Peppermill is going to beat you and your horse in the competition just you wait and see." She says knowing they could if he would just jump again.

"You need to go back to basic training, you're still a baby. There is no way you and that thing will ever beat me." She says speaking directly to Michelle this time.

"Just you wait and see, I will get first place and you will have your head in the dirt." Michelle says not caring that she was being mean to her. Her dad wasn't around to tell her off for it.

"Come on now Charlotte, stop entertaining the help." The girls mom says walking through the barn seeing the two girls talking. "I will pay someone outside to clean Royal Prince. It's not a job for someone like us." She says pulling Charlotte out of the stall and away from Michelle.

"Don't listen to them Peppermill, you can do it if you just try. We both can. We want to beat Charlotte and Royal Prince right?" Michelle says brushing him slowly. "I'm sure we can." She says quieter to herself. She leaves him alone and starts walking out the other end of the barn, feeling sad and defeated over the day, wanting some time alone.

-xxxx-

Maddison had found herself on the ground after running right into the side of a horse. As she looked up from the ground there was a man staring right at her.

"Be careful Michelle." The man that was on the horse Maddison had hit says seeing her down on the ground.

"Sorry sir, I..i..i wasn't looking." Maddison says in a panic not wanting to get in trouble. She stands up and wipes the dirt off her jeans.

"It's okay. Go over to Coach Ryerson, I think he has something he wants you to try." The man says pointing to the man standing with a small brown horse by the gates in front of them.

She nods back in confusion and slowly makes her way towards the person she had been told to go too.

"Michelle where have you been? Never mind we need to get you started. I think you need to try your jumps on a different horse, build your own confidence up first. This is Petticoat, she is still young and is learning the jumps herself. She is gentle and I think would be a great start to getting you to jump again." He says offering her the reigns from the horse for Maddison to take.

She strokes the horse slowly but was scared to get on, she'd never ridden a horse and had the seen one this close before. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. She was not Michelle whoever that was, and had no idea what was expected of her.

"Here we go." He says helping lift her up to start riding, the horse starts clomping forward obviously knowing where it needed to go. Which was a good thing as Maddison didn't know what she was doing or where she was supposed to go. She sat on the horse bouncing around all over the place. After a few seconds it was starting to really hurt her legs and butt from all the up and down bouncing she was doing.

"Michelle come on, stop messing around. If you want to be ready for the competition you need to be getting serious about it. I know this isn't Peppermill but take this seriously." Her coach yells seeing her having no control over the horse.

-xxxx-

"Why does everyone think I can't do it, I can do it. So can Peppermill. It's no fair, I hit my head months ago and no one believes in me anymore." Michelle says to herself she had walked off alone and into a further point within the woods away from riding school. She was sitting on a rock talking to herself upset that everyone keeps treating her like she was unable to do anything anymore.

"I'm not a baby, Charlotte will see. I will beat her and Peppermill can beat Royal Prince. We will be unstoppable just they wait and see." She says still feeling sad and lonely.

"Maddison, Maddison. Oh there you are." A woman says coming through the woods directly to Michelle.

"How did you get down here? We were all so worried about you, you just ran so fast none of us knew where you'd gotten to." Lorna says breathlessly as she walks up towards Michelle sitting on the rock alone.

Michelle looks at her confused she didn't know who this woman was or why she was calling her Maddison.

"Want to go join in with the crafts, you could make something for your mom." Lorna says bending to her height, placing her hand on Michelle's knee.

"I will help you, it will be fun and messy. You and mess go hand in hand." Lorna says using a joking tone with her.

"Okay." Michelle says though didn't know why, she didn't know this woman but she was friendly and inviting. She took her hand and walked off with her, she saw the camp logo on her shirt and knew it would be fun and make her feel better than she was.

-xxxx-

Michelle was sitting in a room with lots of other children and Lorna next to her all were decorating pottery figures that she was assuming they had made a few days ago. Michelle had chosen the color's she wanted and was decorating the figure that Lorna had given to her.

Maddison on the other hand was still getting to grips with how to ride and control a horse, the coach had told her to go for a ride around the grounds, thinking she just needed to bond with Petticoat before attempting the jumps.

The hours were passing by and both girls were starting to enjoy the activities they were doing. Michelle was loving having Lorna with her helping her with the painting and decorating of her figure and Maddison was still riding around on Petticoat who she was bonding with and had started a natural rhythm with her now.

"Let's try some jumps now Michelle." Her coach yells trying to bring the two of them back over to the training section so they could do the hurdles. She gets closer and brings Petticoat towards the coach and starts panicking she had no idea how to do jumps and was too scared to try.

"Woah girl. Stop girl." She says at the side of the gate, once Petticoat stopped she slides herself down from her and wraps the reigns on the fence and runs away, while the coach was telling her to get back on and give it a shot.

"What time is it Lorna?" Michelle asks starting to worry about how long she had been away from the riding school.

"It's almost 2pm." She says looking at her watch, giving her a simple smile.

"I have to go." Michelle says speeding off out the hut and through the woods again.

Both girls were running and running away from where they were neither were paying any attention to what they were doing and end up hitting each other down to the ground.

"Watch where you are going." Maddison says getting herself back up from the ground.

"Sorry, I...Woah baby." Michelle says looking at the girl that was standing before her. It was like looking in a mirror.

"Am I asleep?" Maddison says moving her head round examining Michelle before her not believing what she was seeing.

"Are you real?" Michelle says just as confused as Maddison was. Neither were able to understand how they looked the same.

Michelle reaches her hand out and touches Maddison's arm making her jerk backwards slightly, Maddison does the same to Michelle getting the same reaction.

"Woah" Maddison says, "Baby" Michelle finishes.

The two stand there just stunned for a few minutes staring at each other still in a state of disbelief.

"I'm Michelle Elizabeth Tanner." Michelle eventually says offering her hand to the girl before her.

"Maddison Raylee Gourley." Maddison says shaking Michelle's hand and announcing her name to her.

"No way jose?" Michelle says in shock again at hearing her name. Finally knowing who it was that the name belonged to.

"You're Michelle, this crazy horse guy makes so much sense now." Maddison says sitting herself down on a patch of grass finally having the answers to what was going on in the horse centre.

"Who was the crazy horse guy? He kept yelling at me." Maddison asks wanting to know why he did that.

"Oh that's just Coach Ryerson, he's my teacher. Me and my horse Peppermill had an accident a few months ago and I hit my head. Now neither of us can do our jumps. Coach knows I can do it. He's nice but he does yell at me a lot." Michelle shares with her.

"He had me ride a horse called Petticoat, she was beautiful and gentle. I was scared at first I'd never ridden a horse before but it wasn't as scary after a while. But I didn't want to try jumps they are scary, there is no way I'm doing that." Maddison says pulling a face to show she was not at all ever doing that.

"Haha, it's takes lots of practise to do jumps. What about Lorna? Who is she? She's really friendly." Michelle says having spent time with her all afternoon.

"She's my camp leader. She's really nice, she is one of my moms best friends." Maddison says not saying much more, she shuffles her feet into the grass feeling unsure what to say.

"What's your family like?" Michelle asks knowing her family was important to her and wondered what Maddison's was like.

"There's only me and my mom. My mom works all the time, but she is still the best mom in the world." Maddison says picking up a strand of grass and starts twiddling it in her fingers.

"Oh, what about a dad or siblings?" Michelle was thinking maybe she had everything that Maddison didn't have and Maddison had everything she didn't have.

"Don't have any. Never had. It's been mom and I since I was born. I had a granny for a few years but she died." Maddison says still looking down away from Michelle.

"I don't have a mom, she died when I was little. But I have a dad, two older sisters, an uncle Jesse, aunt Becky and their rascals Nicky and Alex. And a Joey." Michelle says reeling off her family to Maddison.

"Wow that's a lot of people. Do you live with all of them?" Maddison says her face lit up with excitement and intrigue she finally looks over at Michelle.

"Yeah, plus Comet the dog." Michelle stands up from the rock an idea brewing in her mind.

"I've always wanted to know what it was like to have a mom." She says not furthering it, wanting to see if Maddison had similar ideas.

"I've always wanted to know what it was like to have a dad and sisters." Maddison says standing back up too. The two of them facing each other once more.

"We should switch." They both say at the exact same time.


	2. Maddison's First As Michelle

**Maddison's First As Michelle**

"Michelle you have to stop running away, twice today I have lost you. Don't be making a habit of doing this. You are here to train and to look after the horses. Do you understand?" Coach Ryerson says as Maddison walks back to riding school after having spoken to Michelle and shared everything they needed to share before they switched.

"Sorry Coach." She says not sure what was appropriate to say back to him.

"Go clean up the stalls, both Peppermill and Petticoat are your responsibility now." He says giving her a look showing he was trusting her with both horses.

She walks off seeing where the horses were and walks in seeing so many different horses, she knew what Petticoat looked like as she had been with her earlier so walked right up towards her and started stroking her again.

"Here Michelle, you'll need this to clean her out." A male says offering up a shovel to her showing her that she needed to clean the muck up.

"Thank you." She says as she takes it from him but looks confused still. She moves in the stall with the shovel and just sighs. Michelle hadn't told her that she was going to have to clean up after the horses while there.

"This wasn't part of the deal." She says out loud, really not enjoying this task she was now having to do.

She cleans out the stall slowly, not enjoying it even once. But once it was done she was impressed with herself for doing it, she was doing lots of things she never imagined she would ever do. Riding the horse was new and now she was cleaning up after the horse.

She looked round the stalls reading the names of all the horses she stroked each horse that she saw, walking by each one until she found Peppermill.

"You must be Peppermill, I'm Maddison. But shhhh everyone must think I'm Michelle." Maddison says quietly to him, whilst stroking him. He makes a noise as though he was responding back to her.

"I'm going to clean out your stall now boy. It's stinky." She says grabbing the shovel she had put down again ready to clean up his stall the same as she had done with Petticoat.

A while later after she had finished cleaning she was feeling exhausted and hungry. She hadn't eaten yet as she left the camp and then was forced into riding the horse. She had then met Michelle and switched which meant she had no time to stop and eat anything. She was starting to hope that Michelle's family would feed her. She needed food and lots of it.

"You ready to go home Michelle?" A tall man says coming into the barn. He had a friendly smile on him and walks up close to where Maddison was. She was guessing he was one of the men Michelle told her about, he had said about going home so he must have been.

"Did you and Peppermill jump today?" He asks seeing her standing with Peppermill, wanting to see how well she had done that day at riding school.

"Not today. Coach put me on Petticoat for a while, she's a lovely horse." She says with a small smile on her face.

"Maybe tomorrow." He says pulling her in for a hug as the two of them walked away together towards his car. She climbed in the back of the car once they got there and they drive off getting Stephanie first before going back home.

-xxxx-

"Wow we live here?" Maddison whispers to herself when she walks up to the house and sees how huge it was. As she goes inside the house she is shocked at just how spacious it was. She hadn't ever seen a house so big and couldn't stop looking round the house in awe.

"Hi comet." She says bending down to the giant dog that had come running into the living room. She starts playing with his fur as two little boys come running in from the kitchen and start hugging the dog with her.

"Hi Nicky, Hi Alex." She says knowing who they were going to be, Michelle had said they were twins and would stay with her as much as they could. She didn't no who was going to be who but at least they would be together.

"Come play with us Michelle." They say both trying to grab her hand and pulling her towards their table at the other end of the living room.

"Boys, Michelle dinners ready." Rebecca yells from the kitchen door having just set up the table ready for them to all eat a meal together.

The boys who hadn't quite reached their table keep walking holding onto Maddison either side of her and walk into the kitchen. The instant she walks in she sees the table full of Michelle's family. She still wasn't fully sure who was who but knew she had no choice but to figure it out.

"Jesse has the moosey hair, Dad cleans all the time and Joey is the funny one." She says to herself quietly hoping she would know instantly who was who. Luckily as she looks round the kitchen she could see who each person in the kitchen was. She saw Jesse getting the boys in their seats ready to eat. Dad was checking that the condiments on the table were in order. Joey was talking to Stephanie making her laugh with something he was saying and DJ was talking to Rebecca. She suddenly felt more relaxed that the family were easy to identify.

"What's for dinner?" She says as she takes a seat at the table, she looked round exploring everyone that was there, watching them all more intently hoping she will be able to fit in and they won't notice she isn't their Michelle.

"Chicken." Jesse says placing the carton in front of Maddison so she was able to take some and eat it. She looks at it a little confused, but takes a few pieces from the box and places them on her plate but wasn't sure if this good food or not. Her mom has never allowed her to eat anything like this and was unsure. Not once in her life had she eaten fast food.

She takes a bite of the chicken that she was still holding and instantly smiles with delight. It was a nicer taste than she expected. She had eaten chicken before but not one like this, it had a different taste to what she was used to but she was thoroughly enjoying it.

"Woah baby, this is nice." She says with a mouth full of chicken, she keeps eating and eating shovelling in bite after bite, unable to get enough.

"Woah there shorty, the ice cream isn't going anywhere." Jesse says to her watching her devouring piece after piece of chicken, making him think that she was just desperate to get to the ice cream.

"Ice Cream?" Her eyes were bulging at the thought that she was allowed to have Ice cream too. She slows down how fast she was eating the chicken seeing no one else was eating quite as quickly.

The room turns to talking with Stephanie sharing what happened through her entire day, Maddison tried her best to listen to everything so she would know what to say to her.

Once everyone had eaten the ice cream and devoured it and along with everyone in the room they all get a second helping for themselves.

"Girl time." DJ says as soon as they girls were done and all three girls go upstairs into her room ready to spend time together.

"I'll do your hair Michelle." DJ says getting all her products on the bed ready to do her hair.

"I can do your nails." Stephanie says looking through all of DJ's polish colors trying to choose one she wanted for Michelle. She chooses a light pink one she knew Michelle would love.

Instantly Maddison was loving all the attention she was getting. If this was what Michelle's life was like she didn't ever want to leave it. Having sisters was a dream of hers and she was finally getting to experience it.

"So tell me about Connor?" DJ says directing to Stephanie whilst brushing Maddison's hair.

"He's so cute, he's in high school, he's got blonde hair, blue eyes, he's sooooo dreamy." Stephanie says gushing over him to DJ and Maddison.

"He's the best singer in camp, can play every instrument there is and oh my he's a god." Stephanie says starting to brag over her new love interest.

"Sounds like a good catch, way to go Steph. Have you kissed him yet?" DJ says in response wanting more juicy gossip from Stephanie.

"Ofcourse, he's a really good kisser." Stephanie says with a huge smile over her face.

"Ewwwwww I don't wanna hear this." Maddison says pulling a face showing how disgusted she was at hearing about Stephanie kissing a boy.

"We'll talk about this when Michelle is in bed." DJ says smiling at Stephanie seeing that Michelle clearly wasn't up for a discussion on boys.

"How's riding school going?" Stephanie asks thinking of a way to bring Michelle into a topic she'd be more interested in.

"It's fun, Coach put me on Petticoat today instead of Peppermill. She's a really pretty and gentle horse." Maddison says a smile on her face recalling the events she could share of the day.

"Did you jump while riding on her?" DJ asks hoping Michelle would have finally overcome her fears and jumped again.

"No, I was too scared. I don't want to hurt myself and fall off." Maddison says her own fears being something the same as Michelle felt but didn't dare share with anyone.

"I'm done with your nails Michelle." Stephanie says screwing the lid back on the bottle of polish she had used to paint her nails and places it back on DJ's table behind her.

"They are so pretty. Thanks Stephanie." She says reaching out to give her a hug. Steph leans over and brings her in a tighter hug.

"Do you want me to come to help you?" DJ asks thinking maybe she could use her own former horse riding experiences to help get Michelle back to doing jumps again.

"You would help me?" Maddison asks a open expression of shock on her face that anyone would offer to help.

"Course I would. I will see when I'm free it will be one day next week." DJ says as she ties up the end of the braid she had been doing in Michelle's hair.

"All done, what do you think?" DJ says holding up a mirror for her to see, she looks into the mirror before her on DJ's table. Seeing what the braid looked like. It was a french braid from the back of her head and was tied with a purple ribbon at the end.

"Wow it's beautiful DJ. Thank you for doing my hair." She says reaching behind her to bring DJ into a huge hug.

"It was nothing." DJ says giving her a smile once the hug was over. "Steph you're next."

Steph swaps places with Maddison ready for whatever DJ was planning on doing with her hair. Maddison sits on the floor next to her watching as DJ starts brushing Steph's long blonde hair. She didn't want the moment to end, it was wonderful for her getting to spend the time with them. She may have only just met them but she felt like they really were her sisters already.

"DJ, Steph it's time to get Michelle ready and in bed." Danny shouts from the bottom of the stairs. He knows to let them do it if they are having a girls night. It's important for him that his daughters bond and get closer and he wouldn't ever interrupt a time they wanted to spend together.

"Okay dad." DJ shouts back. "Come on Michelle let's get you ready. We can finish this after Steph."

The girls make sure that Michelle got herself ready, teeth done, face cleaned, changed I to her pyjamas, a drink of water ready by her bedside and in bed. The two of them tucked her in safely giving her a kiss goodnight before turning the light off and shutting the bedroom door behind them ready for some more private girl time.

"What a good night. I love having sisters." Maddison says before she shuts her eyes and drifts herself off to sleep.


	3. Michelle's First As Maddison

**Michelle's First As Maddison**

Michelle walks herself back to the grounds where the day camp was located and saw children leaving, being picked up by parents or carers or whoever they all lived with. She looked round unsure what to do next. She had been told by Maddison that Lorna looked after her when her mom worked and decided she should go stand with her.

"What do I do now?" Michelle asks standing near her, Lorna was cleaning out paint pots, glue pots and brushes that the kids had been using all day.

"Well you can help clean and tidy up. Or you can do what you normally do and sit on the grass and wait for me to finish." Lorna says giving her a look showing she knew what Maddison was going to do.

"I'll help." Michelle says before thinking, she was always used to cleaning and couldn't stop herself from doing it.

"Ummm I will go tidy the tables, they look messy." She says and heads over to the first table and moves all the news paper that was on them, she folded each piece up neatly and started forming a pile. She did this for each table she walked by making small piles of newspaper at each one.

"Let's get home Maddie-Ray." Lorna says once everything in the room was clean and tidy enough. She locks the doors and the two of them walk off hand in hand ready to go home.

-xxxx-

"Woah baby, where's the rest of the house?" Michelle says to herself as she is lead into a tiny apartment by Lorna.

She walks round the place seeing the tiny living space, there was a simple sofa, a table in front of it, a small bookshelf and that was basically it. She walks round further and sees the kitchen that was even smaller there was almost no room to move around in it. The bedroom which she could see was Maddison's didn't have much in it, a bed, a stand a lamp, another bookshelf, a small toy chest and a closet. Then there was the small bathroom. It was overwhelming how Maddison managed to live in this place, Michelle wasn't sure if she would get used to how small it was.

"Maddie-Ray you're being so strange today." Lorna says having watched her from the kitchen whilst putting the dinner on for them.

"Oh sorry I uhh, I..." She says unable to think of anything to say back to her.

"Go read or paint or something." Lorna says trying to get Maddison to do what she would usually be doing.

Michelle goes off into the bedroom again and looks round to see what to do, she opens the toy chest and sees only arts and crafts things within it. She had no toys in the entire room, not one.

"How does this girl even live? No toys, no TV, no sisters." Michelle says out loud feeling a little insecure. This would be a lot to get used to.

"Did you say something?" Lorna shouts having heard her speaking and not wanting to have been rude.

"No." She shouts back and then knew she was going to have to be careful, this place was tiny, anything she said would be heard.

Michelle grabs loads of paints from the toy chest and brings them out into the living space, she puts each paint out in alphabetical order on the table, making sure that each and every one of them was in a perfect line. She went and got the painting sheet and brushes she saw in the toy crate and brought them out and placed them on the table. Then went to the kitchen filled up a cup with water and took it over to the table.

Lorna was sitting at the kitchen table leaning over, watching everything that she was doing. She was still looking confused over everything she was doing and how unusual she was acting. She could see something was up with Maddison already.

Michelle spends a long time on the painting she was making, she was doing gentle strokes and avoiding making any mess on her clothes or on the table. She knew she was no longer at home and her dad wouldn't tell her to stop being messy, but she was still unable to do it and to make it a mess.

"Maddie-Ray dinner is done." Lorna shouts getting Michelle to stop the painting she was doing. She quickly washes her hands before sitting down at the table to eat whatever a Lorna had made for them.

She was served fish and lots of vegetables. It was nothing like the dinner she usually enjoyed having at home, but she was still enjoying the dinner. Once she was done she was waiting for the cookies, cake or Ice cream to be served; but all that happened was Lorna started to wash the plates. Neither of them had spoken while eating. Michelle had gone too say something but every time she did she changed her mind.

She went searching the cupboards hoping she could find what she wanted but had no luck, she moved onto the fridge and was let down again. She was even more disappointed when looking inside the freezer and seeing again she was let down.

"Lorna, where's the cookies, cakes and ice cream?" She asked her curiosity and disappointment written all over her face.

"Maddison, you do not eat that stuff. You never have done, it's not healthy and why on earth would you even ask a strange question like that?" Lorna says turning to her in complete shock she had been asked.

"I just got a craving for some. Can we make some cookies?" Michelle asks, she really wanted some cookies they were have favourite thing in the world to eat and now she was being told she couldn't have any.

"You know the answer is no." Lorna moves over and grabs a bowl then opens the fridge, pours some grapes in and hands Michelle the bowl. "Here eat these, they will take away that strange craving you have.

Michelle does that and sits there playing with them in the bowl while still eating them, it wasn't taking the craving away at all but they weren't that bad. But she needed to find a way to have some cookies again, otherwise it would drive her bananas.

The front door opens a few minutes later and this tall beautiful brunette woman walks through the door, she places her bag down in the door way and then comes into the kitchen. She goes right over to Michelle and gets given a kiss on the top of her head.

"Did you make any friends today Maddison?" She asks as she goes over to Lorna and gives her a long hug.

"Not really." Michelle says knowing the two of them couldn't share about each other or it was game over.

"Your dinner is in the oven." Lorna says to her once they had pulled out of the hug.

"Thanks I'm so hungry. Oh Maddie, you need some friends." She says reaching to get her food out and moves to sit at the table opposite Michelle her plate in front of her.

"I have an idea. How about tomorrow you spend the whole day with other children and I don't want you staying with Lorna once all day. You can do any activities you want that are there but it must be done with other children. What do you say?" She says a smile on her face, she wanted nothing more than her daughter to start making friends and was running low on options of how to convince her too.

"Okay, I can do that." She says smiling at her as she says it. Putting the last of the grapes in her mouth.

"Good that's what I like to hear. So what did you do today?" She asks before putting a forkful, of food in her mouth.

"Umm I painted a pig figure. It's drying tonight but I made it for you." Michelle says having been told earlier that the pottery figure was made for Maddison's mom and so she painted it perfectly. Even though at the time she clearly knew nothing about who she was or why she was painting another girls figure. But she made it pretty anyway.

"Oh I cannot wait to see it Maddie." She says her face lighting up. "You go finish your painting you started earlier, I will join you soon." She says reaching her hand over to Michelle's for a few seconds.

Michelle goes back through to the living space and continues the painting she had been doing. The hours go by with her painting, her mom and Lorna sitting together on the sofa talking and watching what she was doing. It was a very peaceful and relaxing home Michelle realised. It was so different to her own, it was never peaceful there.

"Let's get you ready for bed Maddie-Moon." Her mom says taking her hand in hers leading her through to the bathroom. She turns on the shower and places a towel out for her to use after she was finished.

Whilst she was showering her new mom cleaned up all the paint and places everything away carefully in the toy chest. She gets Maddison's night dress ready for her and puts on a small light that was plugged into the wall. She goes back into the bathroom the dress in hand and places it down for Michelle to put on.

"Your night dress and towel are waiting when you are finished Maddie-Moon." She says before leaving her alone and going back through the living room until she was done.

"Mom I'm finished." Michelle says loving that she was for the first time able to say the words mom and have one. Maddison's mom goes back over and leads her to the bedroom.

The two of them sit together on the bed as her mom start brushing her wet hair, she was soft and gentle and eventually she could feel she was braiding her hair.

 _"How was I suppose to know_

 _Just how perfect you would be_

 _My love grew with your little heart_

 _A miracle it seems to me"_

She starts singing in a soft, calming beautiful voice, Michelle was starting to become sleepy already just hearing her singing to her.

 _"All the riches in the world_

 _May not fall into your hands_

 _Life won't always treat you fair_

 _But stand you will to its demands_

 _I can't promise you a diamond ring_

 _Or a castle in the sky_

 _But I will give you all my love_

 _And a perfect lullaby"_

She continues as she ties up the end of her hair with the end of the ribbon she had included in the braid sticking out. Michelle couldn't take the smile she had off her face, this was what she'd wanted, a dream she'd always had. She had a mother.

 _"Keep on beating little heart_

 _Sleeping safely in my arms_

 _Rest your eyes my precious one_

 _You are safe from all harm"_

She opens the covers and helps get Michelle tucked into the bed. She keeps singing to her, sitting at the edge of the bed now that her daughter was tucked in safely, ready to fall asleep for the night.

 _"All the riches in the world_

 _May not fall into your hands_

 _Life won't always treat you fair_

 _But stand you will to its demands_

 _I can't promise you a diamond ring_

 _Or a castle in the sky_

 _But I will give you all my love_

 _And a perfect lullaby_

 _So long as the winds blow and mountains rest sure_

 _As true as the ocean is blue my love endures_

 _All the riches in the world_

 _May not fall into your hands_

 _Life won't always treat you fair_

 _But stand you will to its demands_

 _I can't promise you a diamond ring_

 _Or a castle in the sky_

 _But I will give you all my love_

 _And a perfect lullaby"_

She sings until she finishes the song as Michelle's eyes slowly started to shut before her. She gives her a kiss on the forehead. And then gets off the bed slowly and walks quietly towards the door.

"Have the most magical dreams Maddie-Moon. I love you so much." She says before closing the door and leaving her daughter alone to sleep.


	4. M&M Meet Again

Maddison is fast asleep in Michelle's bed, Stephanie in hers early in the morning. The bedroom door opens slightly as two little boys creep into the room softly. They climb up from the end of the bed and start bouncing on Maddison.

"Wake up Michelle, wake up Michelle, wake up Michelle." They chant as they keep bouncing on her.

"Ugh get off me." She says groggily not wanting to be woken up or be bounced on, she wasn't a morning person at all.

One of the boys keeps bouncing and the other has started to climb off already not liking the way his cousin was with him.

"You mean like Steffy." One of them says seeing that Michelle wasn't being happy and smiling with them like she normally does in the morning.

"Oh I'm sorry Nicky, Alex. I didn't mean too. I'm just very sleepy." She says hoping that no one would start noticing she wasn't Michelle.

"Come on boys leave your cousins to get ready." Rebecca says coming in the room slightly ready to take the boys to breakfast.

-xxxx-

"Maddie-Moon, time to wake up." Maddison's mom says as she enters her daughters room and calmly coaxes her out of her sleep. Michelle hadn't slept much that night anyway and so was only in a simple and light slumber. "Suns up so we just be up ready to start our day."

"Morning mom." Michelle says with a smile on her face, she still loved saying that. She couldn't imagine she would ever not enjoy calling someone mom.

"What are we going to wear today?" She asks her before she gets off the end of the bed and opens the closet that held both of their clothes.

"My purple top and jeans." She says knowing instantly that they had both arranged what outfit they had similar of other than what they were wearing yesterday. They had both found out they had a similar simple purple top and they both obviously had jeans.

"That sounds like a good outfit for a fun day at camp." Her mom says getting the items from the closet and placing them down on top of the toy chest before getting underwear out for her to wear also.

"What about me?" She says reaching her hand out so Michelle was able to come choose her outfit. She looks through the closet seeing what she could choose.

'I like this top and maybe these shorts?" She says unsure if she chose something good or not, she didn't know what her job was or what she was supposed to wear for it.

"I like the sound of that. I'm going to have a quick shower." She says grabbing her clothes and leaving Michelle on her own to get dressed.

-xxxx-

"Stephanie, I can't find my purple top. Do you know where it is?" Maddison say after looking through the closet and draws and not finding the top Michelle had described to her.

"Maybe it's downstairs in dads pile of cleaning." Stephanie says to her while getting herself ready for her day.

"What do you think of this? Do I look cute enough?" She asks turning to face Maddison to show her the outfit she had chosen.

"Honestly?" She says unsure if she should tell her what she really thought or lie to her and make her happy.

"Why is it that bad?" She says seeing the look Maddison was giving her. She looked at the outfit again feeling uncertain all of a sudden.

"It kinda looks like something Cinderella's ugly step-sisters would wear." She says telling her the truth, the dress was awful in Maddison eyes and too frumpy.

"How rude." Stephanie says to her before looking in the closet for something else to wear.

Maddison keeps looking over everywhere again for the purple top and still has no luck. She sighs then decides on asking her new dad if he knew where it was.

"Dad, do you know where my purple top is? I can't find it anywhere." She shouts from the room, she wasn't going to walk down all those stairs just to ask a question.

"It's down here honey. In the basket. I will bring it up." He says knowing it had been cleaned and folded but not yet put away.

"Thank you." She shouts back to him. Happy that their plan for the day wasn't going to be ruined due to the wrong outfit.

-xxxx-

"Is breakfast ready?" Michelle asks as she comes out the bathroom once finished getting ready. Her stomach had been rumbling and she couldn't wait to eat.

"Yep, here you go." She says as she places a bowl of what looked like mush to Michelle before her. It didn't look very appetising at all. She herself sat down with a bowl and put pieces of fruit in hers.

"So Lorna told me you ran off twice yesterday. Can you explain to me why?" She says while mixing the fruit around into her bowl of granola. She was calm and didn't look mad, but look concerned for her.

"I just had to be alone for a few minutes." Michelle says not really having known why Maddison had ran away, but doing her best to cover it up.

"Uhu. Well I don't want you doing that today. You need to appreciate the opportunity you got by being aloud to go to this camp. It wasn't easy for Lorna to get you in and for free at that." She says before stopping what she was saying so she could eat a spoonful of food.

"I know you would have come work with me everyday this summer. But it's dangerous and not very fun for you. This camp is amazing for you, you get to try new things and make lots of new friends." She says again stopping to eat. Michelle was still yet to try hers and was just listening to her new mom.

"I have a surprise for you though. Yesterday I said to you I would try and get some time off work. Well I am off tomorrow and Sunday. So you and I can spend some much needed girl time together. Just us two no one else." She says waiting to see her daughters response.

"Really? We get to spend time together?" Michelle asks shocked that she was going to be given this opportunity. She felt a little bad for Maddison though as she was going to miss out on this and it was her mom after all.

"So think about what you would like to do. But it has to be something free or really cheap." She shares knowing she didn't have much spare money to be able to do too much.

"Maybe we could have a picnic in the park or something." Michelle says knowing that was something her family did that cost nothing at all.

"That sounds like a good idea. Maybe before we come home today we could go grocery shopping and get some food for it?" She asks with huge smiles on both of their faces.

"I like the sound of that." Michelle says thinking she might be able to get some cookies or something else to take with them. She starts eating her breakfast just thinking about the things that they might be able to do together.

-xxxx-

"Who wants more pancakes?" Danny asks from the kitchen seeing that the girls plates were empty and he had a whole new stack ready to share out.

"I do I do." Maddison says with a mouth still full of them. He places the stack in front of her and she picks up over half the stack and puts them on her own plate. She pours so much syrup over them it was sliding off her plate and onto the table.

"Guess we will have what's left." DJ says seeing only a few left for Steph and herself to have. She put the remaining pancakes out on their plates, but gets watched by Maddison the whole time.

"Are you going to eat them?" Maddison asks still with her mouth full with more messy pancakes, looking between DJ and Stephanie wanting theirs too.

"Yes we are Michelle." Stephanie says as she pours syrup on her own and then puts a huge mouthful in her mouth showing they were hers.

Maddison sticks her tongue out at her new sister, food still in her mouth as she did it, Stephanie sticks hers out back at her but gets caught by Danny.

"Girls let's stop this before you start fighting. There are plenty of pancakes and I can easily make more." He says to them rolling his eyes at them, anytime pancakes were brought out Michelle would always steal them. The amount he constantly had to make made him wonder why he still made them for his girls.

"Who are you going to ride on today Michelle?" DJ asks changing the subject away from the food.

"I don't know depends on what Coach wants me to do I guess." Maddison says shrugging her shoulders not really sure what would happen. She knew that she would be riding again that day but so would Michelle.

"Oh, well do you think you will jump?" DJ asks again wanting to find out where Michelle's mind was over the whole jumping situation.

"I don't know, it's not easy." She says not feeling confident in having to do the jumps.

"It's okay, I will help you next week and we will have you jumping again in no time." DJ says giving her a huge reassuring smile.

-xxxx-

"Michelle where are you?" Maddison says waiting for Michelle to show up. She had been dropped off at riding school and as soon as her dad left she ran off before being spotted ready to meet up with Michelle.

"You're late." Maddison says the second she sees her approaching the meet up point.

"Sorry your mom and I walked here. Then I had to get out of camp before Lorna spotted me. That was not easy." Michelle says to her explaining exactly why she was late.

"How'd it go yesterday?" Michelle asks her wanting to know how everything went for her first day of the swap.

"Wonderful, you family is awesome. You're sisters love me, we spent lots of time together DJ did my hair and Stephanie did my nails. I love having sisters." Maddison says with the biggest smile on her face.

"And you get to eat anything you want, I have never in my life eaten sweet food like you have, I had fast food chicken, and so many bowls of Ice cream and as many pancakes with syrup as I wanted." Maddison says sharing the glory of her new foods she had had. "It was like heaven in my mouth."

"How was your day?" Maddison say after a few seconds seeing Michelle's impatience.

"It was okay, I was with Lorna for a long time though. She great but she's not your mom. I really like your mom though. She braided my hair and sang me to sleep. She has a beautiful voice. I've always dreamt of my mom tucking me in bed and singing to me until I'd fallen asleep." Michelle says a smile on her face remembering what it was like last night.

"But you don't have any toys, you only eat healthy stuff. And you have no TV. How come?" Michelle asks still being confused by it she had never met anyone her own age that didn't have those things. It was very strange.

"I've only ever eaten healthy foods, until yesterday I had never had anything like it. My mom doesn't think they are good for us so she doesn't buy them. And we can't afford many toys or a TV or anything like that. It would be a waste anyway as they would never be used. I read most of the time and if I'm not reading I'm making something crafty." Maddison says simply like it was nothing unusual but the look on Michelle's face showed otherwise.

"So today what's the plan?" Maddison asks they had planned most of it but she wanted to double check.

"Half a day each, I start at the riding school and you will be at camp. Then after we eat lunch we swap. So I will be at camp and you come to riding school." Michelle says to her and gets a nod in response showing Maddison understood.

"Oh your mom said you have to make friends today, you are not allowed alone with Lorna. But you can do anything you want to do as long as you are with other kids." Michelle says as an after thought.

"But I don't want to make friends with anyone." Maddison says sitting herself down in frustration.

"Well I don't want to get in big trouble mister." Michelle says sitting next to her.

"Fine. Oh DJ said she is coming to riding school next week to help you with your jumps." Maddison shares with her getting a horrified look from Michelle.

"What? Why?" She says not able to form any other words. Not sure what the reason was DJ was coming.

"Because she is your big sister and said she could help. I thought it was a good idea." Maddison says unsure why Michelle wasn't happy about it.

"You have to make sure I know what day. Things will get very tricky." She says knowing the switch won't work if DJ was there all day, she would know the difference by the way they ride the horse. It wouldn't be easy to do at all.

"We have to go now, I will see you at lunch before we swap back over." Maddison says giving Michelle a quick hug before they go in separate directions.

-xxxx-

"Maddison, this is Chloe, Lucas, Nina and Forrest." Lorna says as she sees Maddison come near her, she had found friends for Maddison to save her doing the one thing it was obvious she wouldn't do.

"Hi." She says to them all shyly. They all respond back with the same.

"I have the perfect messy activity for you all. So go get aprons on, shoes and socks off and then come back here to me and I will get you all started." Lorna says having set up an activity just for Maddison so she would have no choice but to play with other children.

They follow her round to the side of the small building and see huge sheets of paper all over it. They were on the grass and stuck up on the walls. All massive white sheets ready to be painted on. There were loads of tubs of paints in front of the sheets on the floor, with every color they could need and many brushes of different shapes and sizes.

"I want you five to go crazy and have fun. You can use any color, you can make a mess and most of all do what you want. These sheets of paper need to be covered in a mix of colors. So you can throw the paints at it, you can fling the brushes and spread the colors. You can stand in the paints, put your hands in the paint and walk all over them. You all can choose what you want to do and get as messy as you want to." She says to them seeing the eagerness written on their faces.

"You can be as creative as you want to be, you get to decide what it looks like. So have fun and make a mess." Lorna says setting them loose to start making a messy picture.

-xxxx-

"There you are I need you to brush both Peppermill and Petticoat before we do anything else. Then you are free to go on the trail with Peppermill, Amelia may want to go with you also. We will do some practise with jumps later this afternoon with Petticoat. Off you go now." Coach Ryerson says as soon as he sees Michelle standing with her horse in the stalls.

"Okay coach, thank you." She says grabbing the brush to get started on brushing her beautiful horse.

"Maybe we can do a jump out on the trail, just a small one maybe? What do you think Peppermill?" She says while brushing him, she gets him shaking his head showing he didn't want to.

"Okay, another time then. But we only have a few weeks until the competition and I really want to enter it. If you won't jump then I can't jump." She says looking let down, she really just wanted to enter and show her family she was okay and could still jump, but it wasn't looking like she was going to be able to do that.

She brushes Peppermill and then moves on to Petticoat, she didn't really know her much but she certainly was so beautiful. She was one of the horses they used for first time riders as she was an easy horse to ride. She wasn't so sure why her coach was making her ride her though. Maybe Charlotte was right and she was a baby still. She was unable to shift that thought the whole time she was brushing down Petticoat.

As soon as she finished brushing them both, she goes over to Amelia who was almost Stephanie's age and invites her on the trail with her. She hadn't been aloud on the trail alone since the accident, no one dared let her incase she hit her head again while out there.

-xxxx-

"This is so much fun." Maddison says to Chloe who she was painting with, the two girls had decided that flicking the brushes was the most fun as it would splash all over the place and it made it really pretty.

"I know and look how all our colors overlap. It is so pretty." She says smiling back at her both admiring what they had done so far. All the mixtures of color were so vibrant and it was making the whole thing look fantastic, there were different stroke marks, and different sploges all over the sheet.

"We need to do pink and purple on that piece up there." Maddison says looking at the almost blank sheet that was attached to the building, it was hovering above the sheet on the floor the two had been using but most of their paint had missed it so far.

"Oh good idea, I will do the pink, you do the purple and we flick it at the same time so the color crosses over." Chloe says getting excited as she swapped the paint brush she had for the pink one. Maddison does the same but gets the purple one both ready to paint it.

"1, 2, 3 go." They both say at the same time and the colors splash together on the sheet, making it look as beautiful as they both wanted.

-xxxx-

Both girls continue the activities they were doing until lunch, Michelle having a beautiful ride round the trail with Amelia and her horse Hercules. It made the whole thing more fun that she didn't have to do it alone, as she always had someone to talk to. Maddison continued her painting with Chloe and getting completely messy the whole time. It was the most fun she had had at the camp and she finally had a friend.

The two girls ate their lunches where they were Maddison eating the food that the camp provided while Michelle was eating the food her dad packed for her, she knew where he kept it each day so was easily able to get hold of it.

They both snook off carefully once they had finished so they could meet up again and then swap until Monday when they would meet again. This time it was Michelle who was left waiting for Maddison to arrive.

"Sorry I was with my new friends." She says when she arrives telling Michelle she had done as she and her mom instructed.

"You did it?" Michelle says in shock that Maddison had actually made some friends.

"Yeah, Chloe, Nina, Lucas and Forrest. We did this huge messy masterpiece. It was amazing you should have been there. We were throwing paint and flicking the brushes so it went everywhere." Maddison says gushing over the fun that she had. "Forrest was trying to walk on his hands but he fell over and now has paint all over his hair. And it left this huge smudge on the painting from where he fell." She says sharing more and laughing as she remembered watching him fall.

"I went on the trails with my friend Amelia, it was beautiful and peaceful. Coach said he would work with me this afternoon on the jumps with Petticoat. So that's what you'll be doing." Michelle says telling her what she had done and informing her what was to come next.

"But I'm too scared to do the jumps. What if I hurt myself? My mom wouldn't be very happy, we can't afford any medical bills." Maddison says knowing her mom had said before that any medical bills would cripple them and they would have nothing.

"Well you are there as Michelle not Maddison duh, so my daddy would pay for them. And you won't fall just don't think about what you are doing and breathe. Petticoat is harmless I doubt you'd fall off." Michelle says to her not seeing her worries at all.

"Okay but I'm not so sure about this." Maddison says giving Michelle an uncertain look.

"We should go now, otherwise they will be wondering where we are." Michelle says leaning over to give Maddison a quick hug. Before they part away from each other again.

-xxxx-

"Go carefully Michelle, don't start thinking about what might happen just focus on Petticoat. Let her guide you slowly round the circuit. Don't jump just yet, don't even think about the jump." Coach Ryerson yells from the fence as Maddison rides Petticoat in the arena.

She was really nervous and didn't want to be doing this. She had no idea what she was doing and all she was thinking was if she falls and injures herself. Petticoat was just striding slowly and gently around the arena, she was fearless or so it seemed.

The two of them kept moving round the arena not doing the jumps just yet, Coach wanted the two of them to learn the route before going for the full ride. But after a couple times doing it he said they should try the jump.

"I'm not so sure about doing this girl, but if you know what you are doing and won't hurt me then maybe we should try. I'm trusting you." Maddison whispers to Petticoat then takes in a huge breathe before the two of them go into a serious ride together.

She gets towards the hurdles and takes a deep breath in, closes her eyes and Petticoat jumps over the smallest hurdle. Petticoat stops after she'd done it waiting for Maddison to lead her onto the next one.

"Yes yes yes Michelle I know you could still do it. Yes I'm so proud of you. Keep going and jump over each one. Keep going." Coach Ryerson says so proud of her and a smile so huge she could see it from where she was.

She does what he wanted and keeps riding getting over more jumps, and more jumps and gradually wasn't feeling so sacred. She was soon doing it with her eyes open actually seeing herself going over the hurdles. She was in shock that she had been able to do them. That she had the ability to do this with a horse.

She practised her jumps over and over for hours until coach said it was time to put Petticoat back in and muck out both horses stalls again. That was a task she would never get used to having to do. She did Peppermill first and then moved onto Petticoats stall.

"Girl you were fantastic, I knew you would do it." She says to her while cleaning her stall.

"Ha, I told you that you were a baby and could only do baby jumps." Charlotte says standing before the stall staring in at Maddison.

"So we still jumped." She says back to her, turning to see who was talking to her.

"I can't wait to see you get last place at the competition. You will see me in the winners circle." Charlotte says holding her head up high and proud that she was already going to beat her.

"Oh don't be so sure. I'm going to beat you, I'm going to be standing in that winners circle and you will be crying your eyes out. You will see who the baby really is." Maddison says putting the shovel against the wall to come closer to Charlotte.

"People like you need to be shown a lesson. You are mean and you are spoilt and I will not let you bully me. I will not allow you to treat me like the muck I'm cleaning up. People like you need to be beaten by people like me. Poor girls that love their lives, who fight to win against meanies like you. We are better than you in ever way, just you wait and see you meanie. I will beat you and you will be left crying." Maddison say standing right before Charlotte staring her down as she says all this too her.

"Michelle Elizabeth Tanner that was not nice to say that to someone." DJ says as she walked in and heard the end of the conversation Maddison was having. She looked angry that her sister had even uttered such mean words.

-xxxx-

"Maddison you have the choice what you want to do. You can join Leader Paul's group over there or you can join me and my group." Lorna says seeing who's group she wanted to be part of for the activity they were about to do.

"I'll join your group." Michelle says not even knowing what they were doing yet.

"Good choice, you have Chloe and Forrest on this team aswell." She says leading her over to where a group of kids were standing waiting.

"The group games are about to start. Stay with your group leader and may the strongest team win." A man says that was standing in the middle of the the groups. There were 5 leaders and 5 different teams all standing together. "Leaders send one member up to collect team shirts." He says again making another quick announcement.

Chloe goes up for Michelle's group and collects the team shirts they were purple, which Michelle thought was funny as she already had a purple top on. They each put them on as every group started showing different colors. There was the red group, yellow group, blue group and pink group.

"If you are new to the camp then you will not know about our games, I will be brief as we want to get started. Every Friday afternoon starting today we will have some form of fun group games. Each game you do will be scored and at the end of camp will determin our winning team." He pauses looking at the groups seeing who was eager already.

"One team that has the highest score wins this trophy and a few other prizes. Last year Team Purple Power won. So this year Lorna and her team start first with timed events." He says getting a cheer from her group as they were the reigning champions.

"Today's activity is a swimming one, each team will swim against each other from one end to the other end, once every member is over, you swim back to this side again. First team that completes this wins the challenge and gets the first set of points. Leaders get your kids ready in the swim costumes and once all done we will get started." He says sounding over excited for the annual games to begin.

All the children in the different groups went into a different sections of camp all had been given swimming costumes in the color of their team. Once every team had arrived near the set up swimming section, the games began.

The games started with each team sending one child at a time each swimming against each other to get to the other side. When it was Michelle's turn she felt nervous everyone was watching her and cheering her on but she hadn't swam much before and wasn't sure if she would make it. She started going as fast as she could, pushing herself further and further each stroke she took. The instant she reached the other side she was pulled up and out the water by her group.

"Come on Chloe, you can do it." She shouts as the last kid in the group is in the water swimming her way to the other side. Michelle looks round for a few second looking at her competition and was surprised to see that most of the other groups still had two or more people to go. One group had a kid stuck in the water crying maybe they couldn't swim and were scared. But Michelle knew now they had the highest chance they would win the game.

"Come on Chloe." She shouted once more getting her to speed up so they could all start going back to the other side. Chloe eventually makes it to the end and gets pulled up to join them.

"Go back in the order we started, we can win this." Michelle says to them all before the first boy in the group climbs back in the water and starts swimming again.

As they neared the end they had competition from the yellow team who had now caught up and were chasing them down for the win. It came down to Michelle and Chloe vs Nina and Rowan as to which team would win.

-xxxx-

"You know better than to say things like that to someone Michelle." DJ says to Maddison as the two are walking out of riding school together.

"But she started it. I just couldn't hold it back anymore she was such a meanie." Maddison says defending what she did.

"It doesn't matter if she's mean you can't just say things like that. Just promise me you will ignore her next time. Don't let her get to you." DJ says not wanting to punish her as it was supposed to be a fun day for them.

"Fine I promise I will not say anything to that meanie again." Maddison says but has her fingers crossed behind her back as she says it, showing she didn't really promise it at all.

"Hey squirt, hope in." Kimmy says as she leans out the car window to see Maddison and DJ approaching. It was the first time seeing Kimmy and she was everything Michelle had said and a lot more. Her car was bright and as she got in it became even brighter, a mix match of colors all over the place.

"Where are we going?" Maddison says putting her seat belt on getting comfortable in the seat behind Kimmy's.

"To pick Stephanie up and then the mall." DJ says turning to tell her. Maddison's face instantly lit up hearing that they were going to the mall together. She was getting another sister day and was going to enjoy every second of it.

They drive off towards the music camp that Stephanie was in and the second they get there they see her with a man draped round her and the two of them making out.

"Ewwwwww. That's gross." Maddison says seeing what they were doing, covering her eyes no longer wanting to see it.

"Hey Steph, need us to get ya a room?" Kimmy says jokingly to her seeing the two all over each other.

"No we're good here." She says turning to her for a second and then starts kissing Connor again.

"Stephanie hurry up I wanna go to the mall." Maddison says fed up of coving her eyes and waiting for Steph to finish kissing her boyfriend.

"I'll call you later." She says giving him one last kiss and actually gets in the car this time.

"You're right Steph he's gorgeous." DJ says checking out Steph's boyfriend once she was actually off him.

"I know." She says a huge smile in her face as Kimmy starts driving away.

-xxxx-

"You're all wet. Did you have fun today Maddison?" Her mom says when she came to pick her up from camp joining all the other families.

"Yes so much fun, we won the competition. But it was close. Purple Power were only a few seconds away from losing but Chloe just reached the end before the Yellow Flowers got there." Michelle says a huge smile on her face after the swimming challenge they had just been part of.

"We did this huge painting thing earlier which was messy, but it was really fun and Forrest was messing a round and has paint in his hair now. And I have a new friend Chloe, she's amazing." Michelle says she didn't know everything that had happened with the painting so only shared a little about it, Maddison would have lots to say as she was there.

"Wow, I'm happy that you had so much fun and made friends, that's just what I asked you to do. I want to quickly speak to Lorna and we can go then okay?" She says getting a nod back from Michelle before she goes off to where Lorna was.

Michelle just stands there waiting for her mom to arrive back with her. It felt like so much time was passing before she came back to her. Most of the other families had already left and she was just alone waiting as the staff cleaned up and her mom was still gone.

"So much for quickly." She says still waiting. She smiles a few minutes later as she saw her leaving again ready to actually stay with her now.

"Sorry Maddison, I should have been quicker. Let's go." She says leading her and Michelle off to her car and heading to the grocery store as they planned.

-xxxx-

"I like this." Maddison says holding up a simple flowery dress in the store they were in, all of them had been looking at the various clothes within the store and previous stores they'd been on but they had yet to have heard anything from Michelle on what she liked.

"Do you want it?" DJ asks going up to her offering to buy her the dress.

"No. It's expensive, i haven't any money." She says putting the dress back down on the rack she had looked at the price and knew it was more than she should ever spend on a dress as her mom would have said to her. She walks away and goes to a different area seeing what Stephanie was looking at.

"Do you like this one or this one?" Stephanie says holding up two tops for review. Maddison looks at them both considering the options.

"That one." She says pointing to a red one she was holding up.

"Good I liked that one more too." Steph says giving her a smile.

"Hey Squirt, this would suit ya." Kimmy says holding a dress that was overly bright and had five different colors on it all crossing each other in a strange pattern. It was certainly something only Kimmy would wear.

"There is no way I'm ever wearing that." She says going over to her looking at the dress.

"Why it'd look cute on ya." Kimmy says holding it against Maddison to really see what it would look like on her.

"Woah Kimmy don't try corrupting the poor girl with your loud fashion sense." Stephanie says coming over to the two of them seeing the dress against her sister.

"She likes it don't ya?" She asks directly to Maddison waiting for the final result.

"No way jose." Maddison says really not liking the dress that Kimmy had chosen for her.

"Your loss." She says as she puts it back on the rack.

-xxxx-

Michelle and her new mom get what they needed from the grocery store, picking up fruits, vegetables, yoghurt and sushi all which were for the picnic. They got a few various other items for general at home eating but none of the products were what Michelle wanted. She asked but was still unable to get any cookies.

After they finished Maddison's mom drove to a secret location not sharing where they were going just that she had a surprise for her.

"Where are we?" Michelle asks her mouth open amazed at the location she was brought to.

"Strawberry fields. I thought we'd go berry picking again." She says smiling herself seeing Michelle's excited face.

"Let's go get baskets and choose the strawberries that we want. Maybe we could make some ice cream with some of them." She says getting an even more excited look from her.

"Make Ice cream? Really?" She asks confused and amazed at the same time.

"Yeah we always make our ice cream. Come on before someone takes all the good berries." She says leading Michelle towards the entrance of the small building there, so they could get the baskets and be lead through the direction where they had permission to start picking.

"Woah baby, that's a lot of strawberries." Michelle says once she was there, it was crazy seeing how many had grown. She had never done anything like this before but it was so exciting.

"Fill up your basket with any that you like the look of. The bigger the better, but don't eat too many while picking." Her mom says knowing that her daughter always eats lots of berries when they go picking together.

The two of the start picking Michelle at one section and her new mom on the opposite side. They had their backs to each other making sure they got the best of the crop.

"Mom how come I don't have a dad?" Michelle asks her a little later in to the picking, she had the question on her mind but hadn't asked yet. She saw no pictures of him at the apartment and she just couldn't not ask anymore.

"Oh wow. Umm where do I start. Come sit with me a second, I think we need this talk, you've been asking me questions like this for a few months now." She says seating herself on the ground and pats her lap for Michelle to join her.

"When I found out I was pregnant with you I was only 16 years old, I was so young. Your dad was 18 years old and just about to go to college. I was too afraid to tell him about you for the longest time. I did eventually tell him and he wasn't happy with the news." She says stopping for a few seconds to make sure she was able to word everything right.

"I think he was just scared and wasn't ready for the commitment of a baby. He chose himself and went away to college, I haven't heard from him since that day." She says looking sad just thinking back on it, Michelle looked just as sad hearing Maddison's moms story. Her family always said that family was the most important but Maddison's dad had left them not caring about his family. It wasn't a nice feeling knowing he didn't care.

"Luckily though Granny Gourley wasn't too mad at me and helped us out for a while. She taught me everything about how to look after you, she let me finish school and gave us a place to live, helped pay the bills. She was fantastic, loving, caring and I miss her everyday. Do you remember her?" She says sharing a happier side of the memories she had of Granny Gourley.

Michelle shakes her head wishing she would have known her, she saw a photo of who she was guessing was Granny Gourley but she didn't know for sure if it was her or not. Maddison was about three years old in the photo and they were in the park, they looked so happy together.

"Well that's okay you were very little when she died. But she loved you so very much as do I." She gives her a big hug and places a kiss on her head. "I think we should get finishing our picking." She says bringing Michelle to a stand again.

The two do just that and fill up their baskets getting many many strawberries. Michelle was loving the opportunity she was getting and the time she was having with her new mom. It was a memory she was going to keep even after they switch back for good. Having a mom was the best thing ever.

The two spent a long time talking and picking and even eating the berries making themselves sticky and messy from what they had eaten. Michelle was being able to make her laugh and the two were smiling and talking Michelle finding more about her new mom.

-xxxx-

"I'm going to miss this." DJ says sitting with her sisters and Kimmy in the food court in the mall. They all had fries, burgers and shakes in front of them that they were eating whilst talking.

"Yeah it won't be the same without ya Deej." Kimmy says responding back thinking what it would be like without her around all the time.

"Can I have your room?" Stephanie says jumping right on the room issue.

"Where you going DJ? And why do you want her room Steph?" Maddison asks looking sad and confused.

"I'm going to college in Los Angeles, you forgot already." DJ says thinking it wouldn't take long for Michelle to forget her at this rate. "And no Stephanie that room still belongs to me, I will be home some weekends and every holiday."

"Can't blame a girl for trying." Stephanie says proud of herself for at least a trying to see if she could have her room.

"You'll still have me, I'm not going anywhere." Kimmy says she was only going to a local community college so wouldn't be far away from them.

"Oh great Gibbler is staying." Stephanie says sarcastically.

"You love me really." Kimmy says to Steph both actually smiling at each other after.

"Oh Michelle this is for you." DJ says passing over a bag for her sister to take from her.

"What is it?" She asks not actually opening the bag to see inside it.

"Open it and see for yourself." So she does she opens it and is shocked at what she sees inside.

"Do you love it?" DJ asks with a smile on her face already, knowing what she had bought for her sister.

"Yes I love it thank you so much DJ." She says getting off her chair and giving her new sister a huge hug. Inside the bag was the dress she was admiring in the store they were in earlier. She put it back after seeing the price and the fact she had no money. She never dreamt that DJ would have bought it for her. But here it was in the bag, a gift from her sister. She really did love being the youngest sister she got so much love given to her.


	5. Weekend With The Tanners

Maddison is woken up in the morning by Joey, Michelle would usually wake herself up and join him for cartoons and cereal on the couch. When she didn't join him that morning he had no choice but to go and get her.

"Michelle, would you care to join us? Get out of your bed, it looks tasty is it made out of...wood" he says holding Mr. Woodchuck in his hands and speaking with his voice. Maddison looks at him sleepy and utterly confused.

"What was that Joey?" She says still in her bed not sure what he was saying or doing, she had yet to notice the puppet in his hands.

"That was Mr. Woodchuck your old buddy. You've not out grown our Saturday cartoons have you?" He says getting a sense that Michelle wasn't quiet the same.

"No, I'll come, I'm just tired." She says not really sure what to expect by the cartoons he was referring to.

She goes with him and sees these drawings moving on the TV, she was fascinated right the way at what she was seeing. She had never seen a cartoon, she'd never seen anything from a TV. She had briefly seen them in the windows of stores but she didn't pay much attention to them. But seeing the cartoon before her made her unable to take her eyes off it. She ate her cereal quickly while watching intently.

"Do you have any paper and a pencil?" She asks when one of the cartoons ends, seeing it go to commercials. She wanted to do a drawing really quickly but wasn't sure where they kept everything. Joey gets one from the twins table that they were scribbling all over and hands it to her, unsure what she was planning.

Maddison starts drawing on the paper it didn't resemble much at first but soon Joey was seeing exactly what she was doing, he was watching every step she was taking. She stays engrossed in what she was doing even though another cartoon had come on by now.

"Done, what do you think?" She says when she had finished the drawing she was working on, handing the picture up to him to take.

"Michelle, how did you do that?" He asks concerned, he'd never seen Michelle's drawings be that good before. It looked exactly like the character from the cartoon they had watched.

"I...umm i don't know, I just saw him and wanted to draw him." She says hesitating and worried she may have blown it now by doing the drawing.

"Jesse, Danny come here." Joey shouts wanting to share her incredible art with them.

"What is it Joe?" Jesse says coming in the room assuming something was wrong. Danny follows him in feeling just the same way over what could have happened.

"Look what Michelle just drew. Did you know she could do this?" He says handing the drawing to them. Both of them kept looking between the drawing and her unsure where it had come from.

Danny goes to the kitchen quickly and grabs one of the pictures she had made before and the three men stand there comparing them seeing how much her artistic talents had changed and progressed.

"Munchkin, this is incredible. How long have you kept this talent a secret?" Jesse says sitting next to her holding the drawing in his hands.

"I don't know, I just like drawing things." She says shrugging her shoulders not having much of an answer for them. Well not one that they would understand.

"This is going on the fridge." Danny says before going Into the kitchen and putting the picture on the fridge for all to see.

Maddison finishes watching the cartoons then gets herself ready for the day, she didn't know what plans the family would have but was excited to see what she might get to do. She comes downstairs and sees Danny getting lots of cleaning stuff out, more than she thought he would need to be cleaning alone.

"Michelle are you ready to round up the troop and get started?" He says seeing Maddison hovering round him.

"Huh?" She says not sure what he meant.

"Tanners it's cleaning day, get in here so I can share what you are doing today." He shouts to them all, they slowly walk down the stairs or in from the living room. All looked like zombies none wanting to participate.

"I know you all have stuff you want to do so you all only have two things each. Once you have done them and Michelle and I have inspected you can go about your day." Danny says before handing a post it to each member of the family so they could see what they had to do.

"All set, get ready and get cleaning." He says before they grab the buckets and other cleaning products and go to the areas they had to go to.

"Get your belt on Michelle and we will get cleaning together." He says with a smile on his face, handing her belt over to her.

Maddison puts it on but starts feeling apprehensive over it as she didn't like cleaning and wasn't looking forward to this at all. They both clean together, Danny having to tell her things he had technically taught her already so she was able to clean at his standard.

"I hate this." Maddison says going into the living room to do an inspection and sits on the sofa with Stephanie who had already given up her tasks.

"Where's dads cleaning robot gone?" Stephanie says confused that Michelle would hate cleaning.

"She's tired and on break." She says thinking that she was tired and didn't want to clean anything more.

"He will be checking where you are if you don't report back." Stephanie says knowing her dad would come in soon.

"Okay. Dad, Steph isn't doing the cleaning." Maddison says ratting on her sister forcing Danny to come charging into the room.

"Tattletale" She says to her and quickly moves so it would look like she was doing something.

"Stephanie, you had two things to do, clean under the table and dust the living room." Danny says sighing at her, thinking it wasn't that hard of a task she had been given.

"I know I was just taking a break." She says giving Maddison an evil look annoyed at her for tattling.

Danny soon starts doing his inspections seeing if the cleaning his family had been doing was up to his standard, dragging Maddison with him even though she didn't want to be doing it, she played along as best she could. She was enjoying his company the whole time though even she didn't like the task. It was actually amusing for her watching how invested he was in getting his house spotless and perfectly clean. It was already clean as far as she could see but he had a standard she could tell and it was important to him.

"What do I do now?" Maddison says to herself when the cleaning and inspections were done and her new dad said she could do what she wanted until later. She wasn't used to having so many things available like Michelle did.

She sat at the desk in Michelle's room, Stephanie laying on her bed talking on the phone. She had no idea what she should do, the amount of things Michelle had made her overwhelmed, she didn't know how to play with any of the toys and the books Michelle had she read when she was younger. She had an idea that maybe Stephanie would play something with her so she could have something to do.

"Steph, can we do something together?" Maddison asks going up towards her hoping Stephanie would say yes to playing with her.

"I'm on the phone, leave me alone Michelle." She says moving the phone away from her mouth for a second to respond.

"Please, I don't know what to do." Maddison begs her face looked like she was going to cry seeing too many options and not having any idea what to do with them.

"Butt out Michelle. Go bug DJ instead. I'm talking to Gia." Stephanie says turning away from Maddison so she could keep talking.

"Please Steph, why can't we do something? I don't want to play alone." Maddison says getting emotional that her sister didn't want her around.

"Michelle, I'm busy get out and leave me alone." Steph says getting up and opening the door waiting for her to get the idea and leave.

She just sits there outside the door feeling sad and confused that Stephanie didn't want to be near her anymore. She had tears running down her cheeks not sure why she was alone now and not knowing what she could do. She looks round the rooms and sees DJ's room and decides to go see if she was there.

"Steph kicked me out." Maddison says her face looking sad as she said it, she still had tears staining her face.

"It's your room too. Go back in and ignore her." DJ says offering the help, but its strange telling Michelle that she normally would automatically walk in and take her room back anyway.

"Oh, can we do something together? I want to stay with you." Maddison says just wanting one of her new sisters attention.

"Sure, what do you want to do?" DJ says waiting to see what she wanted to do, leaving the choice open.

"I don't know. Something fun." Maddison says still not knowing what.

"Let's go make some of my famous brownies together." DJ says thinking up an idea she would love as well as Michelle.

The two go into Danny's perfectly clean kitchen and start making it messy. They were mixing the ingredients together getting the flour, sugar, coca powder everywhere and the shells from the eggs all over the table. They were lucky he wasn't seeing what they were doing he wouldn't have liked the mess it was in. Maddison was loving every second of it, she was making a mess, getting to talk with DJ and she got to eat off the spatular they used to spread out the mixture before it went into the oven to cook.

"I did my jumps yesterday." Maddison says while licking some of the mixture off the spatular.

"Really? Wow why didn't you tell me?" DJ says shocked to hear the news that she had jumped again.

"No one asked me." She says simply answering her question. "It was with Petticoat it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be."

"Well that's because you've done them before, you needed to boost your confidence. We will have so much fun on Tuesday when I come with you." DJ says sharing the day she was planning on coming.

"Can you still jump?" Maddison asks wanting to know what DJ was able to do.

"Yes I can, I won many competitions for jumping." DJ says a smile on her face thinking about her horse Rocket that she used to ride, thanks to aunt Becky buying him and letting her ride on him.

Jesse walks through his coat and keys in his hand looking ready to leave. Maddison looks at him watching as he approached towards them both.

"See you girls later at the Smash Club." He says as he opens the back door.

"Bye uncle Jesse." DJ says smiling giving him a quick hug.

"Bye uncle Jesse." Maddison says but doesn't offer up a hug until he grabs her into one making her giggle.

The brownies finished cooking later, and DJ and Maddison got them out to cool off. Maddison kept saying she wanted to eat them already but DJ told her she had to wait. That was no fun as she just wanted to try DJ's famous brownies. The two cleaned the kitchen up again before their dad came in and saw how messy everything was.

After a little while DJ gets Maddison to go back upstairs to her room as they all were going to the smash club soon and they all had to change and be ready to go.

As they arrive into the smash club Maddison instantly becomes in awe seeing the place, she had been in places similar but this was beautiful to her. She couldn't stop looking round at everything and ended up walking away from her new family so she could explore everything that was there. She bumps into someone as she wasn't paying any attention to what she was doing.

"Hi Michelle, where is Stephanie?" Gia says using a really degrading baby tone dragging out each word as though she didn't think she could understand her.

"I'm not dumb, you don't need to talk to me like that." Maddison says hating that voice she used with her so used it right back "Go find her yourself, or are you too dumb to do that?"

"Someone is a bit grumpy today." Gia said using the same degrading tone, pats her on the head and then walks off so she could find Steph.

"Wow Steph's friend is worse than DJ's." Maddison says to herself as she continues walking round the smash club.

"Hey munchkin." Jesse says as he sees her walking near where his office was.

"Hi uncle Jesse." She says smiling at him.

"Go join everyone, I've got to go on stage and perform now." He says giving her a small nudge making her walk back to where her family were seated.

"We got you a root beer Michelle." Becky says to her as she sits at the table with them.

"Thank you." Maddison says hesitantly she had never drunk anything like that before and wasn't sure she would like it.

She takes a sip and pulls a face, it was unusual. But she didn't hate it. A few seconds later Jesse's band Hot Daddy and The Monkey Puppets start playing and The Smash Club comes alive. Everyone enjoying the music and having a great time.

As the night comes to a close Danny gets his girls home and carries a sleeping Maddison upstairs to her bed. He gives her a kiss and tucks her in. Ending her first full day with her new family.

-xxxx-

"Who ate the brownies?" DJ says frustrated as she was packing everything up for the park and saw most of the brownies she and Maddison made and hid away were gone.

"Michelle, Steph? Who ate them?" She says looking angrily between the two of them.

"It wasn't me." Both of them say at practically the same time. Then look at each other because they did that.

"Good morning." Joey says coming down the stairs all chipper. His face was messy and covered in chocolate crumbs.

"Seriously Joey? The brownies were not yours." DJ says to him seeing how he was.

"I got hungry and you didn't hide them very well." He says all innocently not sensing he had done something wrong.

"Well now we have to make do with what we have left." DJ says still frustrated they had almost all gone.

"Let's all eat and get ready to go to the park." Danny says serving up the Sunday brunch for the family to all enjoy. They all ate the food and then got ready to go to the park for the day.

The whole family go together to the park and set up the picnic and get everything laid out that they needed. Jesse had brought various instruments so they could all have a little music in the park like they normally do. Maddison is given the harmonica to play as the whole family knew Michelle loved to play it.

They all start playing and singing but Maddison was holding off not sure what kind of sound would come out when she started playing. This instrument was new to her and was sure it would sound awful when she did try.

"Join in munchkin." Uncle Jesse says in an almost whisper to her wanting to get her joined in. He starts up for the next song and she joins in but was scared they would know she wasn't Michelle as she hasn't ever played it before.

"Your hurting my ears with that awful noise Michelle." Stephanie says to her hearing the notes coming out wrong.

"Oh sorry. I guess I'm just not into it today." Maddison says not sure what else to say.

"Here you play this and I will play that." Stephanie says swapping the tambourine she had for the harmonica so her ears would no longer hurt.

They sit there and play a few more songs singing and playing the instruments with out anymore bad notes being played. After a while Jesse puts his guitar down and everyone puts there's down.

"Let's play some football." DJ says picking it up off the blanket. The whole family get up even Maddison reluctantly, she hated sports and didn't have a clue what she was doing.

They were spilt up DJ leading one group and Stephanie leading the other. Maddison was chosen in DJ's group but was scared before they even started.

"Michelle catch it, take it to the end zone." DJ shouts as Jesse threw the ball to Maddison, they were in for the win if she could do this. Maddison had done literally as instructed the entire game not straying or doing anything she was not told to do. She was too worried she was going to get injured if she moved on her own.

"Come on Shorty you got this." Jesse shouts seeing her running and running and avoiding those from Stephanie's team trying to get her down. She reaches close to the end and trips up falling face first in the grass.

"Yes Michelle you did it." Dj shouts so excited seeing the ball went in the end zone where she had fallen too.

"Okay let's all go and eat now." Joey says being the first back to the blanket. They all follow soon after and start eating the food that was prepared and the brownies that DJ and Maddison had made.

They stayed at the park for a few hours talking, playing more games and playing more songs. Passing by the Sunday. Eventually Danny convinced everyone to go back home, more fun in mind for them all.

"Tanner family fun day continues." Danny says later bringing loads of board games down for the family to play.

"Ughhh" sounds escaped from everyone else in the living room none wanting to participate in his games.

"Kimmy's coming round later, do I have to join?" DJ says sharing that she had already got plans and wanted a way to escape the fun.

"Yes, I've got a family surprise. I found all three videos of when you girls came home for the first time." Danny shares getting the tapes out from the pile of games he bought down.

"We need hot coca first." Jesse says before getting up from his seat and going in the kitchen to prepare them for everyone.

When he comes back through a tray with cups of coca in his hands the girls and Danny were sat huddled up together waiting to start watching the movies. They were all anticipating seeing their beautiful mother, wife and sister once more.

The first movie was DJs filmed in an apartment that Danny and Pam lived in while at college. DJ had her small tennis ball head which brought up comments from her family while watching. Pam was holding her, staring at her so lovingly cherishing her first born baby girl. Causing everyone in the room to cry already seeing the beautiful woman in front of them.

The second movie was Stephanie's still shot in the apartment location, coming through the doors with baby in her arms and a little DJ following her mothers every move. Wanting to help out with baby Stephanie. Joey and Jesse were there helping out bringing things into the room, while Pam holds Steph to herself a beautiful smile as she stares down at her little girl.

"She's so beautiful." Maddison whispers watching her with the girls in the video. Watching Pam was mesmerising for all of them, they all loved her and missed her. They loved getting a glimpse of her through the videos Danny always made. It felt like she was right in the room with them once more.

Michelle's video was last shot in the house for the first time, carrying Michelle in her arms as Danny shoots the movie, with Jesse and Joey helping bring everything into the house. Her smile was huge and filled with love and joy for her newest baby girl. Her family filling up and feeling complete. The perfect last snap shot of the woman that meant the most to them all.

They all sat for a few minutes tears still falling, remembering everything they knew about her and Maddison adoring how wonderful their mom was. A few seconds later Danny is standing up composed again ready to move to the next thing. Knowing he can't dwell in it and having to stay strong for his family, for his girls.

"Let's play twister, girls your first up." All three girls take their shoes off ready for the match.

"You're going down, today's the day I beat you." Stephanie says desperate that for once she can beat her older sister.

"Oh I doubt that sister. I beat you every-time. I'm just that good." DJ says to her as the two of them get to where Danny had now set up the plastic sheet for them to play.

"I'm going to beat both of you." Maddison says looking between the two of them determination in her eyes.

"Yeah right." Both DJ and Steph say knowing Michelle stood no chance at beating them.

"Right foot yellow." Danny shouts after spinning the card chart to give them the first command. All three do that finding a space of their own.

"Left hand green." He shouts out next getting each girl again to follow the instructions.

"Left leg blue." Is his third instruction but as he shouts it the front door is rudely opened without a knock.

"Oh right Tanner family geek night." Kimmy says as she stands on the steps by the front door seeing what they were doing.

"Let me play. I'm an expert at twister." She says taking her shoe off exposing the reek all through the living room. The girls were unable to hold their noses or the poses their bodies were in and fall to the ground the smell so intoxicating.

"What died in here?" Maddison shouts the smell making her feel sick.

"Our noses." Stephanie says with an annoyed look on her face, staring at Kimmy.

"Kimmy shoes back on please. Your killing the ozone with those things." Danny says wafting the air before him.

"How about we play monopoly instead?" Becky says getting the board out on the table so they could all start playing.

"Good idea Becky." Kimmy says and sits down on the sofa with the family. The girls and Danny join too so they were all playing as a family plus Gibbler.

The night goes on the entire family playing, trading money, being competitive and laughing together. It was a wonderful day and a wonderful night it was everything Maddison had dreamt of having herself.

"I'm tired, I'm going to bed now." Maddison says later that night as she had yawned really big and was struggling to keep her eyes open any longer. She kissed and hugged everyone apart from Kimmy. And took herself upstairs, she changed, did her teeth and tucked herself into the bed.

"I love having a family. It's the most perfect thing I've ever had. Michelle is so lucky." She says to herself before shutting her eyes ready to drift off.


End file.
